Fighting Fake News, In Court - Persuasion

In November 2020, Ruby Freeman served as a temporary election worker to help count the vote in Fulton County, Georgia. “The times when I’ve decided to work for the county, I did so because I thought I could help and because I knew I could do the job well,” Freeman said in a statement issued through her lawyers. “What I didn’t know was that it would turn out like this.”

After the election, President Trump energetically pushed the bogus claim that Georgia’s election was rigged. Citing grainy images from a security camera, lawyers for the Trump campaign alleged that Fulton county workers had counted illegal ballots. Within hours, the claim was debunked by Georgia officials, including the Republican secretary of state’s office and the state Bureau of Investigation. The video showed “normal vote processing.”

By that time, however, various MAGA-friendly outlets had already published the accusation. They did not retract it. Instead, one of them, Gateway Pundit, identified Ruby Freeman by name, accused her of “voter fraud on a MASSIVE scale,” and added, “Maybe the Georgia police or Bill Barr’s DOJ may want to pay Ruby Freeman a visit.” The article concluded with two photographs of Freeman over the headline, “CROOK GETS CAUGHT.” Over the following days and weeks, Gateway Pundit continued to drive the story, with headlines like, “Has the FBI Spoken with Ruby Freeman or Ralph Jones Yet? And If Not, Why in the Hell Do We Have an FBI?”—complete with additional photos of Freeman.

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